BUFFY Creator (And Marvel Vet) Joss Whedon To Direct DC’s BATGIRL

BUFFY Creator (And Marvel Vet) Joss Whedon To Direct DC’s BATGIRL

Joss Whedon, creator of TV’s snarky female action hero series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is set to write, produce, and direct DC’s standalone Batgirl movie. You read that right: complete creative control (or at least as close as one gets to that in these cinematic universes).

After having been burned, and burned out by, his experience on Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, one has to imagine that DC had to make a lot of guarantees (like, contractually) to woo Whedon back into a mega franchise of this magnitude. Whatever the terms were, kudos to WB and DC for making a deal that was too good for Whedon to pass up.

Perhaps more than anything, this gives DC a distinct gender boost over Marvel. Disney’s MCU has inexplicably avoided a female-led superhero standalone movie, even though they’ve had ScarJo‘s Black Widow sitting right there ready to go. Yes, Brie Larson‘s Captain Marvel has finally been greenlit (and set to fly in 2019), but with this summer’s Wonder Woman (and her ongoing central presence in the Justice League movies) and now a Whedon-driven Batgirl, DC is clearly winning the suffrage battle by electing Batgirl to topline a major tentpole.

This will be the first feature film ever for the Batgirl character. No casting news was reported in the Whedon announcement, nor was a release date, but the project will also include other Gotham-based characters.